*In a recent conversation with Charlamagne tha God on “The Breakfast Club,” director Lee Daniels shared an update on his current relationship with Jussie Smollett and discussed the possibility of collaborating with the actor in the future.
“We text each other. It’s so complicated. I still don’t know what to believe. God bless him on his journey,” Lee stated, The Jasmine Brand reports.
In 2019, Daniels admitted he was “beyond embarrassed” by reports that Smollett had staged a racially and homophobically motivated attack on himself in Chicago. The controversy significantly impacted the production of the hit FOX series “Empire,” leading to Smollett’s absence from its sixth and final season.
“I’m beyond embarrassed,” Daniels told New York magazine. “I think that when it happened, I had a flash of me running from bullies. I had a flash of my whole life, of my childhood, my youth, getting beaten.”
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When asked if he had “any doubt in his mind” about Smollett’s innocence, he said, “Of course, there’s some doubt.”
Daniels added, “I’m telling you that because I love him so much. That’s the torture that I’m in right now, because it’s literally if it were to happen to your son and your child, how would you feel? You would feel, Please, God, please let there be that glimmer of hope that there is some truth in this story. That’s why it’s been so painful. It was a flood of pain.”
The award-winning producer told Charlamagne in the video above, “I’d work with him again. I would cast him in something. He’s a son to me; he also represented me and the movement that I tried to start.”
Daniels appeared on “The Breakfast Club” alongside singer and actress Andra Day to promote his latest film, “The Deliverance.” Netflix describes is as a “genre-defying take on darkness, possession, and finding a higher power.”
Here’s the synopsis: Ebony Jackson (Day), a struggling single mother fighting her personal demons, moves her family into a new home for a fresh start. But when strange occurrences inside the home raise the suspicions of Child Protective Services and threaten to tear the family apart, Ebony soon finds herself locked in a battle for her life and the souls of her children.
Inspired by a true story, “The Deliverance” opened in select theaters on August 16 and will debut on Netflix on August 30.
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: Andra Day Speaks in Tongues in Lee Daniels’ New Horror Film ‘The Deliverance’
